A collection that crosses formats
The range at Charter Oak Scanning gives you a reason to think beyond the tapes alone. Photo prints, negatives and slides are listed services, as are film and audio reels. Documents and scrapbooks also appear in its description of accepted analog media. You can therefore discuss a mixed collection with the business, while checking the requirements and costs for each item separately.
Start with a small, meaningful group rather than sending everything without an inventory. A wedding recording, its album and a few written captions could be a manageable first project. Give each item a simple reference number and photograph any existing labels. Keep those descriptions in your own list so you can match the originals to the digital results later.
Choose a handover that fits your order
Charter Oak Scanning publishes three ways to get material to it: studio drop-off in Stonington, pickup, and shipping. Pickup can be from a home, business or one of its pickup locations in Connecticut and Rhode Island. The website advertises free pickup and delivery on orders of $100+ in CT & RI. That is an order threshold for the transport offer, not a price for converting a tape.
Ask which option works for your address and proposed collection, and arrange the details before traveling or packing a shipment. Its published hours are Monday through Friday, 9am to 5pm, and Saturday, 10am to 2pm. Confirm your visit with the business. If shipping, use an itemized packing list, protect the media from movement and moisture, and keep a copy of what you sent.
Settle the tape and file questions first
Video tapes are expressly included in the published service range, but the details do not name individual cassette formats or specify a digital delivery format. For VHS to digital enquiries, describe the labels on your tapes and any known recording issues. Ask about compatibility, the quote, expected completion date, delivery method and whether recordings will arrive as separate files.
Think about how you will watch the result. A file intended for a computer or private online archive needs to work on the devices your relatives actually use. Ask for the proposed file type before choosing delivery. If a tape has a broken shell, visible contamination or a history of getting stuck, describe that condition and ask whether it can be assessed. Avoid trying to play a suspect cassette just to establish its contents.
Keep the originals while you check the results
Charter Oak Scanning says originals can be returned. It also describes an optional arrangement to hold the physical media for one month after you receive the digitized files, then dispose of it. Separately, its published practice is to keep customer digital files for six months before deletion, free of charge. These are different retention periods for different things; make your choice about the originals explicit.
Keeping the tapes gives you time to review the transfer without rushing a disposal decision. Play the beginning, middle and end of each returned video, check sound, and match filenames to your inventory. Save another copy on separate storage before relying on a single device. The provider’s temporary file retention is useful context, but your own copies should be the basis of long-term keeping.
Bring the people and dates back into view
After conversion, Memrial provides a separate private family archive for digital photos and home videos. It does not convert tapes and is not part of Charter Oak Scanning. Its free plan includes 2.0 GB of shared archive storage with no card needed. Invite relatives, arrange memories in albums, and add comments or stories while someone still remembers who appears on screen.
Timeline uses exact or approximate dates to help you find memories by year. If a school performance is only known to have happened in a particular year, that approximate date still gives the family a useful way to place it. Keep uncertain descriptions honest and let relatives contribute what they remember.
Watch together and collect the next occasion
Memrial Live Watch Parties synchronize an uploaded home video, with host play, pause and seek controls plus voice and text chat. Relatives nearby or far away can watch together; the free allowance is three hours per month with up to six participants.
For a reunion, Event Memories provides a secure occasion contribution link. Contributors sign in but do not need archive membership, and their photos and videos collect in the event album. Closing the link retains those memories. It connects the work of preserving older recordings with collecting the family’s next chapter.